


loving is easy

by elitemarner



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: (the drug is pot), Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Songfic, lapslock, mentions of recreational drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 15:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18471562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elitemarner/pseuds/elitemarner
Summary: don't you tell me that it wasn't meant to be/ call it quits, call it destiny/ just because it won't come easily/ doesn't mean we shouldn't try





	loving is easy

**Author's Note:**

> hi so this is my first rpf? feels weird right?  
> i wrote this in the middle of the night while listening to the same three songs over and over again. sometimes i get sad thinking about how maybe they're not as close as they used to be so i wrote this to cope.  
> 

_ but i can't help it/ i'm falling for you/ and i can't quit it/ coz i'm stuck on you. _

dylan couldn't count on both his hands the number of nights he spent this summer sitting on the roof of his house with connor, a bowl, munchies, and a bluetooth speaker.  the first time they climbed out of dylan's bedroom window and clambered over the peak of the roof to sit on top of the garage it had felt like they were on a secret mission, felt like they couldn't get caught.  and now they've been up here dozens of times since school's let out but it still feels secret, just for the two of them. and maybe it's the weed in his system, or maybe it's the warm (sweltering) july breeze that's addling his mind, but every time he looks over at connor, sees the slight upturn of his nose in his profile or sees the way the setting sun illuminates the flyaways in his hair, his heart clenches a little.  dylan tries to ignore it, tries to say it's just because he doesn't want the summer to end, doesn't want connor to go away to college and leave him here, alone. but there's a little voice in his head that tells him (as he carefully doesn't eat the red sour patch kids so connor can have them) that maybe it's time to grow up and face his emotions like a real adult.

sometimes, when connor gets high, he gets real deep.  like, he gets stuck on some real gray-area, unproveable, does-it-really-even-matter-just-let-it-go-already bullshit.  one day a couple weeks ago, he got started talking about the trolley problem and got stuck on it the whole night, talking until three in the goddamned morning about the greater good and utilitarianism and incommensurability, which dylan probably can't even spell, let alone define.  sometimes, he thinks connor is too smart for his own good. with connor sitting next to him on the tiles of the roof, legs stretched out in front of him, left foot nudging dylan's right ankle, and oh god he's talking about religion, dylan definitely thinks this is one of those times.

"do you think god cared when he made you and me? do you think, like. shit. hold on a sec," connor starts and then stops, pausing to take a pull.  he struggles with the lighter for a second, which dylan finds stupidly endearing.

"like, do you think god stood over the cauldron when his angels were pouring in sugar and spice and everything nice, or do you think he was just fucked off  somewhere watching tsn?"

dylan's not sure how to answer that, not sure he could answer that sober, so he just stays quiet.  he knows connor will continue when he's ready. he's hyperaware of where their legs are touching; he leans his shoulder against connor's, shifts his weight and puts one of his arms behind connor.  the little voice in his head tells him he's suave, tells him he's super smooth.

"it's just that like. i feel like when god made me he made me smart, i guess, smarter than average," (dylan laughs a little at this, as if davo is anything less than a boy genius), "but i think he left out, like. everything else?" 

dylan gives him an incredulous look.  talking when he's stoned is a chore but he feels the need to pipe up here, for connor's sake.

"what do you mean, left out everything else?," is all dylan can think to say, even though his brain is listing out a million things connor does that amazes him: his dedication to the things he cares about; the way he's failed at every attempt to cook something but he still tries again all the time; stupid things like the length of his eyelashes and the way he claims to have invented already-existing skateboard tricks and names them after songs that dylan likes.  dylan takes another hit. he doesn't wanna deal with davo's emotional crisis right now, not because he doesn't wanna help, but because he feels like high at 10pm on his parents' roof listening to rex orange county might not be the time or the place.

"dyls,,, listen. it's like this.  you're like, so good at everything you try.  youre so nice to everyone you meet, even all the customers with their stupid questions who come ask you for help five minutes before your shift ends, and you're patient, you listen to everything i have to say, you really listen, and stromer. you're like, a leader.  you're a perfect leader. and you're so good with kids, and-"

connor keeps going, but dylan's not listening.   he's lost, not sure where World Savior and Renowned Smart Guy connor mcdavid got it turned around in his head and figured that dyl's the one on the right track, with his shitty retail job and split ends and piles of dirty laundry while connor's going to be fucking ivy league and he does his laundry on the reg and  _ never  _ runs out of underwear.  but the point is that connor feels like he's incomplete, or not worth it, or whatever negative emotions he's feeling right now.  so he lays back on the roof, tugs on the back of connor's shirt until he follows. dylan tucks connor's head up under his chin and tries to ignore the way connor rolls onto his side and sort of curls up against him, resting his hand on dylan's arm and tangles one of his legs around dylan's.  they spend the rest of the night listening to a playlist dylan made (of songs that make him think about connor, which dylan is self-aware enough to realize is not the most subtle thing he could do with his emotions, since it’s full of love songs and when dylan listens to it he feels even more like a sappy, pining idiot) and throwing sour patch kids into the air and trying to catch them with their mouths.  connor gets all the red ones of course.

* * *

_ i will follow you/ into the sea of eternity/ collapse into my arms/ i'll take care of your heart _

a couple days later they walk to the park near connor's house.  they sit on the tire swing, spinning themselves around, yelling the lyrics to connor's karaoke playlist at the top of their lungs.  a mother with a child walks into the park, takes one look at dylan and connor belting out the "dadadada" parts of i'm gonna be by the proclaimers, and keeps walking.  connor notices this and laughs so hard he falls backwards off the tire swing. dylan gets up, shaky on legs dizzy from spinning, and when he offers connor a hand and looks down at his smile, genuine for the first time in a while, he thinks that maybe the dizziness isn't the only thing making his legs weak.

connor scales the monkey bars and perches on top of them.  his smile from before is still on his face. dylan thinks, as he pelts davo with acorns he picked up off the ground, that maybe that smile is because of him.  he dismisses that thought as dangerous; there's no way it should have gotten through his mental metal detector. after connor whines for a while, dylan gives up the acorn thing and climbs up there with davo.  they both sit on the top of the monkey bars, which, by the way, is incredibly uncomfortable. connor is staring at the stars, and dylan is staring at connor, looking at the delicate curve of his cupid's bow and the way his acne is endearing, makes him seem like a real person instead of a skateboarding, snowboarding, model-cum-wonderchild.  he's lost in thought when connor speaks.

"maybe high will be our always," is the stupid ass kind of thing only connor would say to break the moment he was having with the side of connor’s beautiful, beautiful face.

"did you just try and quote john fucking green at me?" dylan asks, and he's not even surprised at this point, not at connor and not at the lack of annoyance he feels at connor quoting john. fucking. green. "and dude, we're not even high right now."

"no," connor says, "well. yeah i guess i did quote john green. but that's not the point.  i guess what i mean is that when we hang out, we're never at ground level. we sit on your roof, we're up on these, on these monkey bars or whatever, we climb trees, whatever. and we actually are high a lot of the time, dylan, you can't prove a point with a sample size of one."

dylan is only a little pissed off at the statistics reference.  mostly he's too busy thinking about how connor goddamned mcdavid wants something to be their 'always.'

connor stays over the night. they play chel for a while, watch a few weird hockey compilations and some skateboarding fail vids, and sack out early, both pretending that they're actually going to go to sleep but instead they stay up talking about the otters and the marlies and top tony hawk moments and which is the best modern baseball album (connor thinks it's definitely sports but dylan thinks it's you're gonna miss it all almost solely on the merit of your graduation).  they absolutely crush a bag of cool ranch doritos, and connor smacks dylan every time he refers to them as “'toes.” in the morning mrs strome makes them pancakes. dylan and connor take turns squirting the canned whipped cream into each other's mouths, enough that by the time the pancakes are done there's barely enough left in the can for them to have with the meal. connor gets whipped cream on the corner of his mouth and dylan has to try so, so hard not to kiss it off.

* * *

_ don't you cry/ i'll stay with you till the morning light/ cause you know i'm just that kinda guy/ and i hope that it's true/ baby i can kiss you better _

on his walk to work, dylan listens to your loving by will davila.  he thinks about connor going to college. he's not just leaving the neighborhood, he's leaving the entire goddamned  _ country _ .  dylan, like, definitely does not want that.  it's not like he doesn't have other friends, he has mitch and cat and whoever else, and it's not like he's not close with them either, coz he is.  and he's only been friends with davo for like two years, when he transferred to dylan's high school to have a better shot of being accepted to all the crazy selective schools he applied to.  dylan doesn't know much about college, but he's pretty sure any school would have to be crazy not to accept connor. dylan thinks about how connor's so goddamned book-smart, and he's got common sense too, can take care of himself and doesn't really need anyone else (and dylan gets scared when he thinks about that, thinks what if connor doesn't need me like i need him,).  but then he thinks about how emotionally unintelligent davo is, how he can't identify what he's feeling ninety nine percent of the time unless someone (dylan) helps him, how he won't talk about anything he's feeling unless it's to someone he really trusts (dylan) and even then there's a lot he keeps bottled up. so maybe, dylan thinks, maybe davo might need me after all. maybe he'll miss me a little when he goes off to providence.  but maybe he's gonna find a pretty girl there who's smart and cooks well and likes to read like davo does and does things like Eating Scones and Hemming Her Own Pants. adult things, refined things that dylan will never do. as dylan is constructing a mental picture of dylan's dream college girl, friendzone by huron john comes on shuffle. dylan sighs and sings along.

most of the way through his shift, one of his coworkers comes out of the breakroom and tells him he missed a phone call.  it's actually a missed facetime invite from davo, which is not a great sign because connor would only facetime dylan at work if something was really wrong.  as soon as his shift's over, he facetimes connor back. he answers, but dylan can only see him from the nose up because he's covered in blankets. his voice sounds froggy as fuck when he asks dylan, "bring soup and nyquil, please, im dying, stromer" and is dylan supposed to do anything other than race home, dig around in his medicine cabinet for whatever cold and flu shit is in there, dig around in his cupboard for a couple single-serve boxes of chicken noodle, grab an extra hoodie, and race over to connor's?

and connor takes a  _ lot  _ of nyquil, when dylan's not looking, complaining that he's gotta kick the summer cold as soon as possible because "it's eating into my dylan time, stromer," and in dylan's head, john mulaney says "now we don't have time to unpack all of that."

so maybe connor's not  _ technically  _ high but the cough syrup makes him super drowsy and everyone knows that a sleepy davo is a cuddly davo (well, at least dylan knows,) and somehow dylan ends up shoved in the corner of the bed where the headboard meets the wall perpendicularly and connor is curled around him, hands fisted in dylan's basketball shorts, wearing dylan's erie otters hoodie, which according to connor smells very good.  dylan doesn't really sleep that night, just runs his hands down connor's back, petting him kind of as if he were a large, cuddly dog, as connor's congested self snores like a 53-year-old father of three who’s had too many beers. and dylan kind of stares at connor, thinking about how he doesn't believe he's the best, even when dylan tries to tell him; thinking about how much pressure connor must be under, the first of his family to go to an ivy league school, the need to earn merit scholarships so his family can afford it, the expectations of his family and friends resting squarely on his shoulders and just waiting for him to misstep.

when connor does wake up, he's slow to disentangle himself from dylan, who's half asleep against the headboard but awake enough to feel connor take his hand and bury his head in the crook of dylan's neck and just breathe.  when connor finally gets up to pee and brush his teeth, dylan curls up in the fetal position on connor's bed, under the sick blankets and all, because his two-year-long mcdavid crisis takes precedence over his physical health, and when davo comes back to bed ( _ fuck,  _ dylan thinks,) they don’t cuddle but there’s a line of warmth where connor’s side is pressed up against dylan’s back and connor, like always, hooks his ankle around dylan’s as he opens whatever book he’s reading and waits for dylan to come back to life.  later they’ll watch, like, every episode of arrested development and dylan will absolutely crush a bag of pretzel rods. everything is normal, mostly.

* * *

_ you don't know babe/ when you hold me/and kiss me slowly/ it's the sweetest thing _

they're on the roof again on the night before connor and his dad make the drive to providence. dylan had helped them pack the car with all of connor's clothes and his board and a lot of his cds, although he carefully hands dylan his stack of vinyl records and tells him "i don't trust my mom not to get rid of these, so i'm entrusting them to you. guard them well."  and connor doesn't want to spend his last night in his house, claiming his empty room bothers him, although in a secret part of his mind dylan wants to think he just want to spend what feels like his last minutes on earth with dylan, his best friend (or dylan, who's more). so dylan carries the heavy stack of records all the way to his house, phone blasting american football from his back pocket. and now it's one am and they're on the roof again sharing a bowl and a couple packs of sour patch kids.

"it's one am," dylan says, never wanting connor to go but worried that he'll be in a bad mood tomorrow for his. big day, or whatever. dylan doesn’t wanna think about it.

davo doesn't reply.  unlike the last time they climbed on top of something, this time dylan is staring out into space, and connor is staring intently at dylan.  dylan feels his face heat up, hopes he's not red, hopes connor can't read his mind, which is reeling at 100mph with panicked thoughts about being forgotten or abandoned, and he's worried that he'll never get over this crush and he'll be unrequited with davo forever and ever until connor forgets him so hard he deletes dylan from his snapchat contacts.

maybe connor can read dylan's mind, because this is what he says next.

"don't get another…” there’s a pause, tense as anything as dylan Just Breathes.     
“don't replace me when i'm gone, alright?" connor looks away when he says it, looks down and to the side, and dylan snaps his head around to look at connor when he says it.

"what do you mean?"

"i don't want... i don't want this with another person, and i don't want you to have this with another person.  i dont know what the word for us is, i don't know how you feel about anything, but the thought of you sitting up here with some other guy, getting high and listening to fucking mac demarco and leaving him all the cherry flavored candy? that makes me feel sick, makes me viscerally upset."

dylan's trying to decide what's more confusing, that davo's actually voicing his emotions without being coaxed, or whatever the fuck viscerally means, or what the fuck connor is trying to convey, but sometime while he was talking, connor picked his head up to meet dylan's eyes and it's, like, super intense.

“maybe i’m being selfish, but, like, fuck-” connor trails off, just fucking  _ looking  _ at dylan.

dylan pops a blue raspberry sour patch kid into his mouth and chews slowly, thinking. he watches connor's eyes, a little red but wide open, the little crease between the brows that shows he's nervous. his eyes travel down, down the slope of his nose and to his mouth.  connor's chewing on the inside of his mouth, but dylan is like, captivated or some shit. connor's fidgeting and dylan knows he should say something but he doesn't know what to say. weed makes his speaking brain go kaput.

"i..." he starts. he pauses. he thinks for a while, settles on what he wants to know.

"connor mcdavid, are you coming on to me? is this a confession?" is what dylan settles on.  connor looks startled. davo takes a pull off the bowl, puts it down, and plants one hand behind connor, sidles up next to him, gets into his space.  if he was sober, he'd never believe what he believes now, that maybe his crush isn't unrequited, and even if it wasn't unrequited, sober dylan would never encourage anything with a person he knew was moving out of the damned country in like six hours. but dylan is not sober and connor is not just 'a person.' he's davo.

so when davo's face looks a little less panicked and he leans into dylan who's laid out next to him and says "so what if i am?," dylan tries not to think, tries not to get in the way of himself. he sits up,  reaches the hand he's not leaning on to cup connor's face, run a thumb over his cheekbone, splay his fingers across his cheek, pinkie and ring finger finding the soft hair behind his ear and the curve of his neck, connor's weird beard scratching dylan's hand.  connor doesn't really look panicked now, mostly just incredulous, as dylan tilts his head and leans in. he doesn't kiss davo, not at first, just bumps noses with him, brushes his lips over connor's cheeks and finally his lips. he savors the intimacy of this and the feeling of connor's breath on his face, worried that this is last chance, worried that this is as close to 'boyfriend' he's ever gonna get, so he takes his time before he closes his eyes and slots their lips together.  

connor's mouth is warm and he kisses in lots of small little kisses, almost chaste.  dylan is content to let connor lead, and he does for a while, until connor makes a frustrated little noise into his mouth.

"the angle is all wrong and my back hurts from twisting," connor explains as he fucking Climbs Into Dylan's Lap.  Dylan's brain short-circuits as he feels connor's thighs bracket his, strong and solid, and he places one hand on connor's thigh and the other on the back of his neck as connor leans in again to kiss him, and this time dylan licks at his mouth, and connor opens up for him, and dylan feels positively drunk on touching connor, who's got a hand in his hair and is pulling for access to dylan's neck, muttering "holy shit, stromer" before sucking a mark behind his ear, and dylan slips a hand into the back of davo's shirt and just holds him like that, skin on skin kind of a lot for him.  and they stay like that, clutching each other and fucking swapping spit like the teenagers they are, until davo can barely keep his eyes open for reasons other than No Kissing With Eyes Open Because Bruno Mars Says So, dylan convinces davo to come down from the roof with promises of cuddles and fluffy blankets and yes, you can wear one of my hoodies, and they get like three hours of sleep before dylan's mom is waking them up because it's time for connor to leave. 

connor is koala-ed around dylan, slow to wake up as always, and as dylan waits for him to come back online, he's kind of terrified.  he doesn't know what this means, what this means for davo at college, or what it means for him back at home. dylan knows he won't pursue anyone else, feels like for right now at least connor is it for him.  but he doesn't know how connor feels and what if connor doesnt want to try long distance, dylan wouldn't blame him, and connor deserves someone who's there for him and within, like, touching distance, and-

"hey, cool it, dude. i can see your wheels turning at like a million miles an hour," is the first thing connor says to him when he wakes up.

dylan must have one hell of a face on because pretty much as soon as he wakes up, connor has sat up, which never happens. connor takes one of dylan's hands, entangles them and rests them in his lap.

"we'll be okay," connor says. dylan wants to believe him. "what's scaring you?"

"uhh..." dylan says, super eloquently as always.  "i guess. i guess i would like to know where we are going with this? if we are going anywhere at all?"  the nerves make dylan's speech a little more formal than it needs to be with davo, and he hopes he doesn't notice, because that's embarrassing as hell.

"oh, well, i guess i didn't really explain myself last night?"

"no,,," dylan feels like the tension in the room is pulling him apart at the seams, while connor seems for the most part to be completely relaxed.  it's just not fair.

"oh.  i'll make myself clear then." he takes the hand not holding dylan's and rests it on the side of dylan's neck, playing with the hair at the base of his head.  "I want to date you, dylan william strome. i want to long-distance with you. i want to facetime you in the middle of the night, i want to have a hundred-day-long snapchat streak with you, i want to wa-"

connor's speech, which dylan thinks is quite nice as speeches go, is interrupted by dylan's mom shouting up the stairs that connor's dad has arrived and it is time for connor to say goodbye.  at this, connor makes quite a stink face, at which dylan laughs and laughs. connor gets dressed, and they stand in the doorway of dylan's room and kiss until the honk of connor's dad's car horn cuts through their makeout session.  connor holds dylan's hand until he's out the door. 

as connor gets in the car, dylan shouts, "hey! that's my sweatshirt!," as connor is, in fact, wearing dylan's otters hoodie.  from over the top of the car, connor sticks his tongue out, and dylan flips him off. as connor and his dad drive away, dylan's phone dings.  it's from connor of course, and the body of the text is just like literally a thousand of the smiley emoji with blushing cheeks and little hearts.  when dylan walks away from connor's house and towards his own, his heart feels simultaneously light as air and heavy as, like, dylan doesn't even know what.  as he walks, easily by bruno major comes on, and dylan sings along.

_ don't you tell me that it wasn't meant to be/ call it quits, call it destiny/ just because it won't come easily/ doesn't mean we shouldn't try _

**Author's Note:**

> hi!!! i hope u liked my weird emotional support mcstrome rpf!!! please drop me a comment with how you felt abt this fic and maybe if the feedback is positive i'll write another one?? maybe a second chapter to this one?? 
> 
> pls..... validate me
> 
> also the lyrics in the synopsis are not the lyrics to the song the title is from. this fic was mostly inspired by loving is easy by rex orange county, dennis by roy blair, and easily by bruno major. the playlist is most of the songs mentioned in the fic + some others i think he's got on there.


End file.
